“For some years now a theatrical troupe called the Reduced Shakespeare Company has made its living performing all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in just over an hour and a half. It’s a highbrow joke. In “Civilization,” Roger Osborne speeds through more than 40,000 years of Western history in just under 500 pages, minus bibliography and index. This is definitely not a joke, although it comes close to being a stunt, an intellectual high-wire act that the author pulls off with deceptive ease.”